Anthony Vanky is a partner strategist and researcher at the MIT Senseable City Lab, a multidisciplinary research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that studies the interface between cities, people and technologies, here Anthony investigates Cities that sense and respond.

 

‘Smart < Sensible < Senseable’

 

Anthony delivered a tremendous insight into the use of Big Data and what it can reveal. Anthony demonstrated through existing and groundbreaking projects how analytical data is shaping the way cities exist whether it be through social media capture, GPS systems and other interventions into urban demographics producing effective and fascinating visualisations.

 

 

Highlighted Project

One of the projects highlighted by Anthony is Hub Cab.

 

 

HubCab is an interactive visualisation that invites you to explore the ways in which over 170 million taxi trips connect the City of New York in a given year. This interface provides a unique insight into the inner workings of the city from the previously invisible perspective of the taxi system with a never before seen granularity.

HubCab allows to investigate exactly how and when taxis pick up or drop off individuals and to identify zones of condensed pickup and dropoff activities. It allows you to navigate to the places where your taxi trips start and end and to discover how many other people in your area follow the same travel patterns.

What do these visualizations tell us about collective mobility? How many of these cabs might you have been able to share with the people around you? And how might entertaining these questions be the first step in building a more efficient and cheaper taxi service?

 

Project Page – HubCab

Further Reading – Project Paper

You can follow Anthony on Twitter @avanky